166 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



may be carefully moved in the spring with a ball of 

 earth. I find that the beds made up in early autumn do 

 much the best, though one is loath to disturb Carnations 

 which may go on occasionally throwing up a flower, or 

 whose foliage, in any case, is so very beautiful half 

 through the winter if the weather keeps mild. 



September 15th. Everyone who lives at all in the 

 neighbourhood of suburban residences must be struck 

 with the extraordinary sameness of the shrubberies 

 which surround these houses and gardens, especially 

 those which are almost invariably planted along the 

 approaches. First of all you generally find the road 

 waving and twisting to give, I suppose, an impression 

 of greater length edged by a foot or two of grass, ugly 

 in itself and laborious to keep tidy. The shrubs are 

 roughly clipped back, chiefly at the bottom, while as 

 they grow upwards the top branches out of reach are 

 left to overhang the road. This clipping, without any 

 regard to the good of the shrub, whether evergreen or 

 deciduous, all treated in exactly the same way, makes a 

 hideous hard wall of green, more or less imperfect. A 

 still uglier way, though more modern, is to keep the 

 shrubs apart by cutting them back in round, pudding- 

 shaped nobs. This method has not one redeeming 

 quality, to my mind. When you arrive in front of the 

 house, the road terminates in a most unmanageable 

 and impracticable circle, surrounding a green plot of 

 grass with more or less the same clipped shrubs all 

 round. This plot of grass is sometimes broken up with 

 standard Rose-trees, or small beds with Geraniums, or 

 basket beds, all very inappropriate, adding much to the 

 gardener's labour, but not contributing in any way to 

 any beauty of form or colour. Instead of this drive 

 round a grass plot or the circular bed of shrubs, I think 

 most people would find their approach more simple and 



